Unitec Teaching & Learning Symposium

1. Unitec Teaching & Learning Symposium I Teach Alone or We Teach Together: Exploring Team Teaching and Impact on Teacher Identity Daniel Stamp Department of Sport

2. Session Outline • Our project • Team Teaching • Disadvantages and advantages • Identity • Challenges

3. Sport Science Project • Integration of sport and exercise science courses • Interdisciplinary approach • Better understanding for students • Team teaching approach • All interdisciplinary courses and classes • No mono-discipline courses or classes • Integrated assignments

4. Team Teaching • A group of two or more teachers working together to plan, conduct and evaluate the learning activities for the same group of learners. • Teaching the same students at the same time within the same classroom. • Working together but not necessarily teaching the same group of students nor necessarily teaching at the same time. (Shaplin & Olds, 1964)

5. Team Teaching • Traditional Team Teaching • Collaborative Teaching • Complimentary/Supportive Team Teaching • Parallel Instruction • Differentiated Split Class • Monitoring Teacher (Robinson & Schaible, 1995)

6. Collaborative Teaching • Team teachers work together in designing the course and teach the material not by monologue, but rather by exchanging and discussing ideas and theories in front of the learners from multiple perspectives.

7. Collaborative Teaching • Obvious potential in broadening topic expertise and perhaps reducing individual teacher’s classroom time. • Offers other significant teaching/learning possibilities • Model for the learners a wide variety of professional interactions including • Disagreement • Exploration • Concept evaluation • Conflict • Resolution • Collaboration (Wenger & Hornyak, 1999)

8. Disadvantages for Teacher • Time required prior to implementation for professional development • Learning the rational behind team teaching • Shared readings and discussion • Learning co-operative skills • Learning time management skills • Many meetings or impromptu chats during the running of the course • Potential conflict

9. Advantages for Teacher • Supportive environment • Development of new teaching approaches • Overcomes academic isolation • Likelihood of sounder solutions regarding discipline of problematic students • Augments the opportunity for intellectual growth

10. Disadvantages for Student • Potential frustration and discontentment about having more than one teacher • Confusion from considering multiple perspectives of an issue • Concern about assignments

11. Advantages for Students • Students benefit from seeing teachers collaborate and co-operate. • Allows students to see how topics are connected therefore making better sense of the information. • Interdisciplinary learning reinforces understanding of new concepts. • Students observe teachers planning in front of them. • Obtain the ‘bigger picture’.

12. Making it work • Teachers share common beliefs about learning and students. • Teachers will question their own teaching as well as learning from their teaching colleague. • Teaching colleague will listen and share during classes. • Trusting and open relationships. • Practice disagreeing amicably.

13. Professional Issues • Teachers have different philosophies. • Sharing of workloads, equal contribution required. • Exposes professional and personal points of view. • Worry about professional growth. • Expertise?

14. Teacher’s Emotional Challenges • Giving up unitary control of the classroom • Allowing one’s ideas to be publicly challenged • Openly acknowledging the limits of one’s knowledge • Impact on one’s identity

15. Identity • How a person describes him- or herself to be distinctive or unique (Brettschneider & Heim, 1997). • Who are you? • Includes our values and norms. • How will team teaching impact on these? • Will your specific teacher identity change?

16. Teacher Identity • Teacher identity or teacher-self incorporates the holistic, dynamic, and situated nature of teacher development. • The teacher is an autonomous individual constantly moving between the need to connect with other colleagues and the need to maintain a sense of individuality

17. Teacher Identity • Individuality • One key aspect to this transition from “me” to “we” is the need to overcome the discomfort of relinquishing the autonomy and authority that are inherent to teaching alone (Martin 1975). • Shifts in statuses and roles • Power (dominance)

18. Teacher Identity • One’s comfort with one’s “teaching self” increases dramatically over time as our status enhances (Olson and Einwohner, 2001) • Negotiation of teacher identities • Student perceptions • Is fluid and dynamic by nature and can be shaped by social engagements with others. • Embrace formation of new and different identities? • Hold on to old established identity?

19. Teacher Identity Issues • Understanding identity and the issues related to it can be a challenging endeavour. • the problem of defining the concept • the place of the self • related issues of agency, emotion, narrative and discourse • the role of reflection • the influence of contextual factors. (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009)

20. Challenging the Teacher’s Identity • Identity negotiation in team teaching has the potential to impact one’s teaching, one’s career, and student’s learning (Auster & MacRone, 1994). • Establishing oneself as a credible lecturer who has enough knowledge, experience, and authority to teach class content effectively is an on-going aspect of any classroom interaction.

21. References • Auster, C. J., & MacRone, M. (1994). The classroom as a negotiated social setting: An empirical study of the effects of faculty members’ behavior on students’ participation. Teaching Sociology, 22(3), 289-300. • Beauchamp, C., & Thomas, L. (2009). Understanding teacher identity: an overview of issues in the literature and implications for teacher education. Cambridge Journal of Education, 39(2), 175-189. • Brettschneider, W. D., & Heim, R. (1997). Identity, sport, and youth development, in K.R. Fox (ed.). The physical self: From motivation to well-being, Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

22. References • Goetz, K. (2000). Perspectives on team teaching. Egallery, 1 (4), August. • Martin, W. (1975). The negotiated order of teachers in team teaching situations. Sociology of Education 48(2):202-22. • Olson, T., & Einwohner. R. (2001). Forming and transforming the teaching self in different institutional environments: Two teachers’ experiences. Teaching Sociology 29(4):403-22. • Robinson, B., & Schaible, R. (1995). Collaborative teaching: Reaping the benefits. College Teaching, 43(2), 57-60.

23. References • Shaplin, J. T., & Olds, Jr. H. F. (Eds.) (1964). Team teaching (pp. 1-23). New York: Harper and Row. • Wenger, M. S., & Hornyak, M. J. (1999). Team teaching for higher level learning: A framework of professional collaboration. Journal of Management Education, 23(3), 311-327.